I am planning on releasing a couple of CD over the next couple of months (hopefully before 50/90 starts on July 4th!).

Although I don't how I can expect any sales (I'll buy one so I can call my a professional -- ha, ha), but even if I do I won't make any money.

If I sell a CD for 10$, here would be my cost breakdown
CD's: $1.75 per CD (kunaki and maybe as low as a $1),
CD-Baby: $4 per CD
paypal: $1 per CD


Off the top that is: $6.75 leaving me $3.25 gross profit.

Compared to a record contract where a band might get $0.50 to $1 per CD sold, it looks OK -- but the record company does advertising and promotion (I saw about 10 articles on how much money CD sales generate and they were all wildly different, but the link above seemed in line with the other "reasonable ones").

If I did a single for $1, i-tunes takes $0.30 and paypal takes $0.10 -- there are probably other charges in there, too (like setup).

My main issue is that I am not a performer and I won't develop that ever important "local following". The other strike is that I can't/won't shell out the bucks required to record or master professionally. My home made CD's will sound OK -- but nowhere near the pros. OK, I might get to 80% or 90% of a pro level, but that last 10%-20% makes a huge difference.

I can't really speak to Brian's topic because I don't have knowledge in that area, but I thought I would add this part to the conversation.

Kevin

"Good science comes in peer reviewed journals. Conspiracy theories come in YouTube videos. "
Kevin @ bandcamp: Crows Say Vee-Eh